I didn’t have a promising start in life – non-speaking past the age of three, doctors advised my parents to forget about me and put me in an institution because I was a lost cause. Luckily my parents didn’t listen and by five not only was I talking but sent home from school for trying to talk politics in the playground. And have been talking a long streak ever since.

I have had multiple careers in my life, excelled in performance but still let go because I wasn’t a ‘team player’, despite my best efforts, including home-baked chocolate chip cookies – and I bake a REALLY good chocolate chip cookie. I now know the issue wasn’t me – the issue was that my masking made them uncomfortable and they couldn’t pinpoint why.

I have several degrees including a Doctorate and not one of those pieces of paper bought me long-term acceptance in the employment world. However, everything I learned, I have kept and used in other areas throughout my life – so the time wasn’t wasted.

My favourite careers were Design Engineer and Teacher, particularly teacher. It broke my heart to walk away from the teaching profession when I was given the stark choice – use bully tactics on your students or lose your job. Of course, the school didn’t put it like that – ‘Adhere more closely to our behavioural policies’ I believe was the actual phrase.

Despite some pretty large indicators throughout my life, I went unidentified as autistic most of my adult life. And after identification, I was too busy being a teacher to do much about it. It wasn’t until I walked away from teaching and some health issues forced me to stop for a while that I put my research training into practice and took the time to do the in-depth research that I needed to figure out how my brain works and how to work with my brain. This then turned into my blog on autistic-village.com.